The administration is a task that is responsible for using the resources available in the best way, through the functions of planning, organization, direction, and control. Good administration is essential for social and economic development, be it at the individual level, in the household sphere, in the business environment, or government settings.

Next, you will learn more about what administration is, its meaning, and the definitions of various authors, you will understand why it is important for individuals, companies, and society as a whole and you will know what its primary objectives are. Forward!

 

Table of Contents

What is administration?

The administration is a constant process composed of the activities of planning, organization, direction, and control of certain resources, which can be of an organizational or personal nature, from which the best possible performance is sought and the achievement of certain objectives, considering environmental and individual conditions.

The term administration brings together various concepts: on the one hand, the field of knowledge that encompasses all the thought and theory developed around the subject, on the other, the implementation exercise of said theories and, finally, the people who carry out the implementation.

meaning of administration

The American Management Association  specifically proposes the following meanings for the term administration — Management — (Kurian, p. 284):

  1. Take control of a company or organization to make it profitable and sustainable. The operation requires organizational and human relations skills that are different from business skills. Management is responsible for setting goals, monitoring change and growth, measuring performance, planning, cost control, pricing, conflict resolution, and quality control.
  2. The group of people involved in running a company or organization, especially in the upper echelons, is known as senior management. Managers are accountable to owners or shareholders for the conduct of business affairs.
  3. The academic discipline is concerned with the study of management as a science and the ways and means of managing an institution or corporation.

In the first place, it refers to the practice of administration, secondly, to the organizational entity made up of those who practice it, and finally, to the body of knowledge that it studies. So, management is science, art, and technique.

Definition according to various authors

In particular, for some of the most representative authors in this field of study in recent years, the administration is:

  • The process by which an environment is designed and maintained in which individuals working in groups accomplish specific goals effectively. (Koontz, Weihrich, and Cannice, p. 4)
  • The process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the work of organization members and using the organization’s available resources to achieve established goals. (Stoner, Freeman, and Gilbert Jr., p. 7)
  • The process of working with people and resources to achieve organizational goals. (Bateman and Snell, p. 19)
  • The process through which the resources of a social group are coordinated and optimized to achieve maximum efficiency, quality, productivity, and competitiveness in achieving its objectives. (Münch, p. 3)
  • The coordination and supervision of the work activities of other people, in such a way that they are carried out efficiently and effectively. (Robbins and Coulter, p. 7)
  • The process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling a company’s resources to achieve its goals. (Griffin and Ebert, p. 169)
  • The art of performance. (Magretta, p. 30)
  • The coordination and direction of the activities of oneself and others toward a particular end. (Witzel, p. 1)
  • The transformation of resources into value. (Malik, p. 39)
  • The systematic set of rules to achieve maximum efficiency in the ways of coordinating a social group. (Kings, p. 14)
See also  Evolution of administrative theory

Why is administration important?

The administration is fundamental because it is the organ in charge of organized economic progress, as mentioned by Drucker. Therefore, it can be inferred that it is essential, not only for the success of for-profit companies but also for society as a whole and for every individual that is part of it.

Certainly, the administration is transversal to a large number of human activities, it has a high sense of ubiquity. Thus, it is present both individually and in groups, at home, in schools, in hospitals, in banks, in foundations, in sports institutions, in municipalities, in governorates, and states…

In a nutshell, everything is managed, and usually, when done right, the benefits are spread among those who comprise stakeholders, family members, in the case of a household, customers, and employees (among others) in the case. of companies or all citizens of a country, in the case of national governments; or in cases where it is not done well, damages. In other words, a high-performance administration and continuous improvement can permanently achieve the progress and development of society.

As particular elements that highlight the importance of administration, the following can be mentioned, among others:

  • It is the discipline most practiced by humanity. Indeed, all human endeavor makes use of the administrative process. Where there is a social organization there is administration, therefore, the greater the organizational complexity, the greater the need for it.
  • Contributes to the sustainable growth of companies. It strengthens the development, adaptation, permanence, growth, survival, and usefulness of business organizations in a changing, globalized, and demanding world, for which greater competitiveness and productivity are increasingly required to remain in the market.
  • It makes the human effort more productive. At the same time that the phases of the administrative process are advanced, an environment is created that facilitates greater empowerment of the talents, experience, knowledge, and aptitudes of the people that make up the organization, in such a way that they can make their most precious contributions to the group goals.
  • The success of social organizations is directly related to administration. When an organization is well-managed, its resources have the propensity to flourish and, conversely, in poorly managed organizations they tend to wither.
  • In the administration and its process, other sciences are condensed and perfected, whose objective is the benefit of society. For example, medicine relies on the administration to efficiently manage the resources of hospitals and other health centers to reach the largest amount of population with effective health services.
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What are the objectives of the administration?

The objectives of the administration turn out to be varied and numerous, due to the breadth of its practice. Among them, the following can be mentioned:

  • Avoid chaos and waste of time, money, and effort. Administration is the discipline of optimizing the resources that support the mission of a social organization, aimed at achieving a vision of excellence. (Pray, p. 36)
  • Promote the increase in productivity. Management is the art of knowing exactly what you want workers to do and then seeing that they do it most correctly and economically. (Taylor, cited by Fernández, p. 17) Productivity is the balance of all the factors of production that will give the highest yield with the least effort. (Drucker, 1979, p.62)
  • Minimize uncertainty. Although the future is seldom accurately predicted, management takes care to make the necessary arrangements to take full advantage of the opportunities ahead and avoid risks. (Maheshwari, p. 6)
  • Promote the development of the people who make up an organization. Management is the process by which a climate is created through which the individuals who are part of an organization achieve both their objectives and those of the organization itself. (Gupta, p. 13) Management has to help bring out the best in the people who make up the organization, so that they can know, decide and act at their highest level.
  • Create customers and keep them. The objective of the administration is to supply the goods and services desired by the consumer at a price that he is willing to pay. Only in this way can a company obtain profits, because it is the clients who generate them. (Drucker, quoted by McGrath and Bates, p. 10)
  • Generate business and social value. The administration is a discipline that enables coordinated work in pursuit of creating value for companies, their customers and owners, and society in general. (Magretta, p. 255)

 

See also  Historical evolution of the administration

References

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  • Drucker, Peter Ferdinand. Business management. EDHASA, 1979.
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